Whistle-Blowers:saints or Sinners Whistle-Blowers: Are They Saints

Whistle-Blowers:Saints or Sinners

Whistle-Blowers: Are They Saints or Sinners?

Whistle-blowing is the professional form of playground tattling, jail house snitching, breaking the code of Omerta by a mafia kingpin. It is a socially discouraged practice and carries heavy sanctions - "unemployment, and often-times ridicule from [the] company." (Weinberg, March 14, 2005) Weinberg quotes David Stetler, a defense attorney who was part of the defense team for TAP, a pharmaceutical company whose prosecution was initiated by a whistle-blower. Stetler makes the claim that whistle-blowing is bad for a company as "just another form of extortion." (Weinberg, March 14, 2005) One must consider the source when deconstructing such a claim. Of course an attorney who is taking part in the defense of such a lawsuit will make the charge that whistle-blowing is an iniquitous practice; in fact, if one did not hear such statements from such an attorney, his commitment to his case and his own professional standards would be in question. Stetler is clearly defending his clients, as his job requires. Of course whistle-blowing is injurious to the company whose illegal pursuits are being revealed. But is whistle-blowing immoral, vindictive, selfish, as Stetler is inferring by his statement? This writer believes these are the relevant questions that need to be addressed.

Whistle-blowing is never good for a company that is harboring criminal workers or engaging in professionally-sanctioned illegal activity. However, from a moral standpoint, it is an intrinsic human obligation to report criminal or unethical behavior, whether it occurs in the workplace or in some other area of one's life. Not to do so makes one complicit, not only from a moral standpoint, but from a legal standpoint as well. The fact that whistle-blowing - tattling, telling, snitching - is not only a serious social misstep but also professional suicide is the reason for offering formal financial incentive. If a worker blows the whistle on his company for incompetent, immoral, or illegal operations, he will immediately lose his job and is then subject to professional ostracism, making it impossible to obtain subsequent employment in order to support himself and possibly a family. Financial reward, the precedence for this being set in 1986 with the federal legislation know as the Whistle-Blower law (Weinberg, March 14, 2005), is necessary for the whistle-blower. This serves not only to encourage workers to report illegal job-related practices in the face of social penalties, but to compensate the whistle-blower for his loss of employment, and lost wages, health insurance, and savings and retirement plans that go along with that.

It is conceivable that some whistle-blowers are financially motivated. It is also possible that any worker who goes looking for illegal activity can either find it or fabricate it in the form of a whistle-blower's self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, Weinberg tells us how Douglas Durand's evidence against TAP was eventually discovered to be misconstrued and misrepresented. The fact that Durand received a $126 million dollar award for this evidence is suspicious and casts doubt on his motives. The fact is that whether Durand intentionally or unintentionally contrived evidence is irrelevant. He says that he believed TAP was engaging in the practices of fraud and kickbacks, and he was fired for attempting to prove this. We as a society must believe him. Morality is not always black and white, but when a person tells us that he made a moral decision based on his interpretation of events, who are we to judge him?

Unfortunately, these types of lawsuits can be considered frivolous to the general public. However, this writer believes that such criticism will only serve to discourage illegitimate claims. A person who seriously believes that a crime is being committed and is sincere in his desire to take appropriate moral action will not be dissuaded by outside opinion - but the person who is only attempting to win a large financial settlement might. And our legal system, both criminal and civil, has the obligation to examine each case based on its individual merits and not on the outcome of past cases. In general, people do live up to these standards. It is impossible to predict which workers will not abide by ethical principles, and which investigators and judges will not follow the letter of the law, but no system is perfect. The Whistle-Blower laws operate on the humanistic viewpoint that the majority of our citizens do want to do the right thing, and will do the right thing if given a chance.